There is no “irrepressible conflict” between this reasoning, the version of the Pentateuch and the idea of Peck’s Bad Boy that “Adam clumb a appul-tree to put coal-oil onto it to kill the insecks, an’ he sawed a snaik, an’ the oil made the tree slippy, an’ he fell bumpety-bump!” What a heap of trouble would have been avoided if that pippin had been soaked in crude-oil, that Eve might turn up her nose at it and give the serpent the marble heart! As Miss Haney expresses it: “O Eve, little Eve, if you only had guess’d Who it was that tempted you so, You’d have kept out of mischief, nor lost your nice home For the sake of an apple, I know.” Other wags attribute the longevity of antediluvian veterans to their unstinted use of petroleum for internal and external ailments! Had medical almanacs, patent nostrums and circus-bill testimonials been evolved at that interesting period, the oleum-vender would have hit the bull’s-eye plump in the center. Guess at the value of recommendations like these, with the latest accompaniment of “before-and-after” pictures in the newspapers: LAND OF NOD, _April 1, B. C. 5678.—This is to certify that I keep my strength up to blacksmith pitch by frequent applications of Petroleum Prophylactic and six big drinks of Benzine Bitters daily. Lifting an elephant, with one hand tied behind me, is my favorite trick. SANDOW TUBAL-CAIN. MT. ARARAT, _July 4, B. C. 4004.—Your medicine is out of sight in our family. It relieved papa of an overdose of fire-water, imbibed in honor of his boat distancing Dunraven’s barge on this glorious anniversary, and cured Ham of trichina yesterday. Mamma’s pug slid off the upper deck into the swim and was fished out in a comatose condition. A solitary whiff of your Pungent Petroleum Pastils revived him instantly, and he was able to howl all night. SHEM & JAPHETH. SOMEWHERE IN ASIA, _Dec. 21, B. C. 4019.—Your incomparable Petroleum Prophylactic, which I first learned about from a college chum, is a daisy-cutter. Thanks to its superlative virtues, I have lived to be a trifle older than the youngest ballet-girl in the “Black Crook.” I celebrated my nine-hundred-and-sixty-ninth birth-day by walking umsteen miles before luncheon, playing left-tackle with the Y. M. C. A. Foot-ball Team in the afternoon and witnessing “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”—two Topsys, two Markses, two Evas, two donkeys and four Siberian Bloodhounds—in the evening. Next morning’s paper flung this ticket to the breeze: “For Mayor of Jeroosalum We nominate Methoosalum.” By sticking faithfully and fearlessly to your unrivaled elixir I expect to round out my full thousand years and run for a second term. Refer silver-skeptics and gold-bug office-seekers to me for particulars as to the proper treatment.